Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,40
can be honest with me. The scholars and their assistants were all briefed about your unique ability, and if this pixie came from that, then I won’t judge you for it or get you into any sort of trouble. Truthfully, I will be in utter awe of you.”
“You will?” An unexpected lump formed in my throat.
“Did you not see me before? I think I squealed like a piglet when you showed this creature to me, Persie. I would be over the moon if you created it!” He grinned from ear to ear. “There are some fairly gaping holes in a land-emission theory, so you would be saving me a great deal of wasted time and effort delving into how that could be possible.”
The pixie chirped and gave my hand a nudge that said, “Go on, stop being a coward.”
“Shush, you,” I muttered.
“You understand her?!”
I mustered a nervous laugh. “No, but I get the gist. You know, when someone shakes a fist at you, or glares at you, or rolls their eyes, you generally know how they’re feeling.” I sighed, my stomach doing somersaults. “Okay, so I Purged her. That’s where she came from. Me. I’m so sorry that I invaded your space. I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t—”
He cut me off with a sudden round of applause. “What are you apologizing for? This is momentous, Persie!” He waggled his hands in another bizarre dance, shuffling his feet a bit. For just that moment, I was glad Genie wasn’t here, more for his sake than hers. She always said that the moment a guy made you cringe, especially in the fledgling stages of flirtation, it was game over.
I looked back down at the pixie—who had started smoothing a dramatic hand across her mossy hair, relishing the praise—and I found a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. She certainly had personality, even if she had given me the run-around. I mean, if someone had been trying to catch me, I imagined I’d do just about anything to give them the slip, too.
“You’ve got no idea how envious I am,” Nathan said, continuing to gush. “Don’t misunderstand me, I’m sure it has its drawbacks, and I don’t want you to think I’m making light of it, but to create something so wonderful—that is everyone’s dream, isn’t it? To make a masterpiece. Some see it in their children, some see it in their first novel, or in a piece of artwork, or a play, or a dance. Some see it in successful business endeavors, or landing a dream job, or making a difference in someone else’s life. Some see it in research, or teaching, or—I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”
I smiled. “A little.”
“What I’m trying to say is, some people spend their entire lives pursuing this, and you have already achieved it. You, and what you are able to do… It’s nothing short of astonishing.” He reached toward the pixie again. Now that she’d received his endless flow of compliments, she allowed him to get a smidge closer before she gave a warning snap of her teeth.
“I’ve never thought of it as anything but a curse,” I admitted. If he fully understood what my body and mind went through in order to expel these creatures, I sensed he wouldn’t be nearly so envious. And yet, glancing at the pixie, I couldn’t deny her beauty. Just looking at her made me want to grab a pencil and start sketching, so I could put every feature to paper-memory. She had life because of me. Sure, her and her wrecking-ball crew weren’t using that life so wisely, but they would’ve gone on being extinct if not for my Purge. There had to be some magic in that—if not the Chaos kind, then the emotional kind.
I held her in my hands and felt her chest rising and falling, felt the toughness of her muscle and bone, as real as Nathan or me. Maybe that made me more than a conduit. Or, maybe, Leviathan’s gift had a way of tricking me into thinking that, the way a mother forgets the specifics of the intolerable pain of childbirth. If they remembered, no one would be crazy enough to have more kids, right?
Nathan nodded. “It’s your cross to bear, and I’m not going to tell you what to think about it. But I will marvel at the outcome.” He put a fingertip on a pleat of the tweed jacket, and the pixie slapped it away with a shrill